ICE NAVIGATION 437 



men handled a brig of sixty to one hundred tons. At the age of ten 

 the Newfoundland sealer began his sealing. No wonder that all hands 

 on board knew every rope and every evolution that was or would be 

 performed. 



I have been asked, "Why not build steel ships and use them in 

 polar work?" We use steel ships for seal hunting; some of them of 

 4000 tons. So long as they are handled with care in light ice they do 

 not suffer much damage. But when they have to work through the 

 heavy Arctic pack trouble comes. After a sealing voyage many of 

 the plates have to be removed and rerolled, especially around the struck 

 parts, that is around the bows and stern, and from twenty to fifty 

 barrels of rivets have to be used to make them tight. Sometimes 

 the frames and stringers become bent — an expensive repair job. But 

 the worst feature of going into the Arctic with steel ships and having 

 to winter would be pumping, for, with the rivets started, leaks are 

 bound to happen. Should a steel ship become squeezed in an ice 

 rafter it would be a difficult matter to get the scantling, beams, and 

 frames in place. 



During the summer of 19 10 I brought north the Beothic, a steel 

 sealer of about 2200 tons burden and 15 knots speed. We had her 

 loaded with coal, and along about June 20 we were at the Duck Islands, 

 Melville Bay; and from there to Cape York, a distance of about 200 

 miles, the ice was from two to four feet thick. We crossed in about 

 forty-eight hours, never once stopping. But after a few hours in the 

 ice the fore peak became filled with water, the rivets having loosened. 

 Being early, there was ice everywhere, and we kept moving in Whale 

 Sound, Inglefield Gulf, and Murchison Sound. Right up to the Bache 

 Peninsula, Kane Basin, and south into Lancaster Sound, and up 

 Barrow Strait almost to Melville Island we had heavy ice. Turn- 

 ing around we steamed back over our track to Jones Sound. We 

 were after musk oxen. I thought perhaps we might get to Melville 

 Island, but the heavy ice in Barrow Strait frustrated that plan, hence 

 I attempted to get into Jones Sound and thus to Cape Sparbo. Across 

 the entrance to Jones Sound is a large island, Cobourg Island, with 

 a strait at both entrances south and north. The two entrances were 

 filled with ice, lots of it, drift ice packed in with the easterly and 

 southeasterly winds, and there was some unbroken bay ice. I kept 

 hammering at it and using lots of dynamite. Finally I broke my way 

 through to the loose ice on the south side of Jones Sound. There it 

 was another fight of 42 miles to Cape Sparbo, where we got our musk 

 oxen. In coming out I tried to get around a point of ice and ran aground. 

 I got the ship off, but with the heavy going through ice all the rivets in 

 the bottom loosened up from stem to stern and all her tanks now were 

 filled with water, so we came home on the tank tops or double bottom. 

 Now, if we had had to spend a winter in the Arctic, it would have 



